For starters, anyone with a .Mac subscription will be automatically upgraded to MobileMe and see their iDisk storage doubled from 10GB to 20GB at no additional cost

What about data transfer? Currently with 10 GB of storage we get 100 GB of data transfer. When you upgrade .Mac to 20 GB it also gives you 200 GB of data transfer. Can we expect to see a bump in data transfer after the transition?

What about the Outlook functionality? You can sync your Outlook Calendar with Mobile Me as well.

That remains to be seen, but a good idea. In the past, no, I could not set up Outlook to check an outside POP/IMAP email account. They are pretty thorough about locking things down. But I assume there will be a Windows equivalent of iSync that Apple is coming out with to manage all this syncing of data. I may or may not be able to get that installed. However, if they are just going to integrate the syncing into iTunes (likely) then it still won't work because they block installation of iTunes, too. I guess if you have 10,000 employees, and they are all constantly downloading music, it can suck up a bit of bandwidth!

And if I remember correctly, they demo'd skimming through events... (but perhaps they were just skimming the albums?).

Either way there's something new implied,
- we don't publish events, just albums...
- we can't skim through albums, just events.

I think you may be confusing events and albums they way iPhoto does it vs the albums on the gallery. From a viewer's perspective, there appears to be no changes from the way .Mac galleries currently work. The Gallery itself is not new to MobileMe, they've been around for a while. For anyone who's never viewed one, here is Apple's sample .Mac gallery.

The Gallery has a section for photo albums and a section for movies, that has not changed. The skimming you saw is of the photo albums (you can skim movies, too; but there is no concept of events in the online Gallery). And in the online version, they simply take thumbnails of 20 photos in the album for the skimming effect. You can't see every photo like you can when skimming an event in iPhoto.

The only thing that appears to be different in MobileMe is that the Gallery owner will be able to rearrange your Gallery online. Even the ability to upload photos from a web browser or email them directly to your gallery is not new. You can do that now with .Mac galleries. The thing that's always been missing is a way to organize your gallery when you are contributing photos to it from multiple Macs, or in my case multiple applications (iPhoto and Aperture). MobileMe appears to address that. How it sync's the newly organized Gallery back to your Macs/applications remains to be seen. I assume there is a forthcoming update to iPhoto and Aperture to support this.

"Once upgraded, users will be under no obligation to stop using their .Mac email address or their .Mac email aliases, both of which will continue to function indefinitely, as will .Mac iChat login IDs. In addition to their mac.com email address, users will also get an address at me.com with the same username and an iChat ID at me.com with the same user name."

Well yes, but that wasn't my point at all. Perhaps I didn't convey my point very well.
Currently, it costs me $99 for 4 emails. With me.com $99 will only buy me one email. What happens at conversion time. Will I have to pay more for the family pack to keep the 3 additional emails? Will the 3 additional emails disappear if I don't? Get it? What happens?

Well yes, but that wasn't my point at all. Perhaps I didn't convey my point very well.
Currently, it costs me $99 for 4 emails. With me.com $99 will only buy me one email. What happens at conversion time. Will I have to pay more for the family pack to keep the 3 additional emails? Will the 3 additional emails disappear if I don't? Get it? What happens?

Aliases aren't separate email accounts. .Mac currently allows up to 3 sub-email accounts PLUS aliases for the primary email account. So that's essentially 4 email accounts for $99. Me.com isn't so accommodating. $99 only gets you one single email account (with perhaps aliases). You have to buy the Family pack at $149 for more email accounts.

Now if you go back to my previous posts you should understand my complaint about paying more and questioning what will happen to my sub-accounts.

Aliases aren't separate email accounts. .Mac currently allows up to 3 sub-email accounts PLUS aliases for the primary email account. So that's essentially 4 email accounts for $99. Me.com isn't so accommodating. $99 only gets you one single email account (with perhaps aliases). You have to buy the Family pack at $149 for more email accounts.

Now if you go back to my previous posts you should understand my complaint about paying more and questioning what will happen to my sub-accounts.

If you still don't understand, then well, I give up.\

An alias is a separate email address that points to the same email mailbox. When I posted the info about the aliases why didn't you mention that you have separate mailboxes or accounts to clarify? You only referred to them as emails and email addresses, hence the confusion. I believe that Apple discoed the multiple mailbox option with .Mac some time ago. if I go to Mail preferences in .Mac I only see an option for creating aliases, no additional account. You may be grandfathered in since it's part of your account, but you'll probably just to sweat it out for the next month.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

.Mac mail. Whether I access it from a web browser of a mail app makes not difference. I just checked my account it's gotten a lot better since I last checked. Good for Apple!.

Are there other email apps for Mac OS that filter spam/junk better than OSX mail? Actually, are there any other email apps for Mac OS at all? Not web email, but desktop email. If you have used any, what are there names and how well do they work?
Thanks

Are there other email apps for Mac OS that spam filter better than OSX mail? Actually, are there any other email apps for Mac OS at all? Not web email, but desktop email. If you have used any, what are there names and how well do they work?
Thanks

I use Mail.app on OS X with my Gmail accounts, but I don't enable junk mail filtering on the client side. Gmal does a fantastic job of eliminating junk mail server side so I never have to see it. As early as a year ago .Mac mail servers did a horrible job of removing junk mail from your inbox.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

Are there other email apps for Mac OS that filter spam/junk better than OSX mail? Actually, are there any other email apps for Mac OS at all? Not web email, but desktop email. If you have used any, what are there names and how well do they work?
Thanks

In what way are they not compatible? I've been using Gmail with Apple Mail for years. Apple Mail will even automatically adds the SMTP/POP/SSL info when you put in an email address with a gmail.com suffix.

"But they are both from different worlds and arent friends, yet."

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

Are there other email apps for Mac OS that filter spam/junk better than OSX mail? Actually, are there any other email apps for Mac OS at all? Not web email, but desktop email. If you have used any, what are there names and how well do they work?
Thanks

There's always Entourage, part of MS Office. You used to be able to buy it seperately, not sure if that's stil the case or not. I have Office 2004, and it seems to do a good job of filtering out junk mail. But then again, I've always been careful with my primary email address, so I get very littlte junk mail to begin with (my secondary addresses are yahoo and gmail online accounts, so I really don't care how much spam gets sent to those addresses).

My email provider adds a spam score to the headers of incoming email and Apple's Mail has an option include those tags when it checks for junk mail. Between that and Mail's built in junk mail filter, I get pretty much no junk mail in my inbox.

I'm planning on activating a 60 day trial on .mac and purchasing an individual .mac subscription on Amazon as other posters have suggested. If I like MobileMe, I will want to upgrade to a family pack. I assume this will be possible. Is it currently possible to upgrade to a .mac family pack from an individual account? If so, what is the upcharge?

I wrote a letter to steve@apple.com stating that Bookmark viewing in MobileMe should be available. I think that is the right address to use. I also noted that Stationary should be added to make it function like Mail and should include iCards. Perhaps a petition needs to be started.

I reckon the missing items are only missing because they haven't sorted them out yet. They will, in usual Apple style, keep schtum until they've sorted it out.

What I want to know is - I recently gave up .Mac because I couldn't afford to renew. I still have my .Mac address as my Apple ID, so will I still get that address if I go back after the upgrade? Would I need to sign up again now in order to save my email address?

Also, anyone know what the price is going to be in the UK? The £69 price tag was my main reason for leaving. I couldn't afford it, and I also realised I couldn't justify it even if I could afford it. With an iPhone and push/cloud stuff, it's looking like better value for money, but I'd like to see a £59 tag to bring it more in line with US pricing.

I'm wondering if mobile me will end up costing iphone users crazy amounts in data downloads? I'm an architect and receive large PDF's etc daily and thus, would just email headers be sent to and fro to the 'cloud' or will the entire attachments get sent and received? Here in Australia, while plans have not yet been released, data plans have been rumoured to be 1GB and 3GB. that's nothing! especially if web surfing, is included. What about itunes and app shop downloads? are these exempt from the data usage count? I've ordered an iphone and am afraid that I'm going to end up being hit with huge phone bills due to the data usage. Will there be a way to limit the connections to sync only on WiFi or to sync only at certain times (work and home hours when in a WiFi connection)? Anyone have any ideas? Also, can't skype be built into the web apps with the sdk? I'm pretty sure that'll be easy!

I'm wondering if mobile me will end up costing iphone users crazy amounts in data downloads? I'm an architect and receive large PDF's etc daily and thus, would just email headers be sent to and fro to the 'cloud' or will the entire attachments get sent and received

There are no data charges from Apple, outside of the yearly fee, for using MobileMe's Push service. If your cell phone plan charges you by the MB, then you are still paying the same as you would by manually or periodically having your device connect to your mail server.

Badges: As for the data that is being sent to and from MobileMe's Push service, I think it's just a simple notification which would only be enough bytes to inform MobileMe of the user's device and service, which would get pushed to you as an indicator to tell OS X iPhone which service gets a badge. Non-email badges, perhaps for app updates may have a message too inform you that this is a unique badge, as opposed to a normal IM message being received.

Sounds: Same as above but with an indicator telling OS X iPhone which sound to use and/or the use of vibrate.

Message: Same as Badges but with more information to include the message. I'm sure there will be a limit to this; perhaps the same 160 character limit as SMS.

This is just speculation, but it's the simplest most efficient solution I can think of.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

I just noticed that Apple's price for MobileMe in the UK is down £10 from .Mac - £59 instead of £69. Finally, some more sensible pricing! Anyway... I left .Mac a few months ago and I was worried about the possibility of losing my .Mac ID. So I was considering returning to .Mac before the change over to MobileMe. However I just went to resubscribe and it just tells me a US list price of $99. How can I find out the UK price for renewing?

If I just wait until MobileMe starts, will I be able to join up using my OLD .Mac ID/Apple ID?

I just noticed that Apple's price for MobileMe in the UK is down £10 from .Mac - £59 instead of £69. Finally, some more sensible pricing! Anyway... I left .Mac a few months ago and I was worried about the possibility of losing my .Mac ID. So I was considering returning to .Mac before the change over to MobileMe. However I just went to resubscribe and it just tells me a US list price of $99. How can I find out the UK price for renewing?

If I just wait until MobileMe starts, will I be able to join up using my OLD .Mac ID/Apple ID?

Apple won't drop your email address and the @me.com will also be available when you re-up.

If you go through Apple's UK store it's for the the £59.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

Yeah that's the link to buy MobileMe, but I want to know how much it will cost me to upgrade .Mac. When I login to .Mac it tells me I need to pay up to continue, but only tells me it's going to cost $99. It then takes me to my credit card details without telling me how much it's going to cost me in UK money.

Yeah that's the link to buy MobileMe, but I want to know how much it will cost me to upgrade .Mac. When I login to .Mac it tells me I need to pay up to continue, but only tells me it's going to cost $99. It then takes me to my credit card details without telling me how much it's going to cost me in UK money.

It's the same price if your coming back for your 5th year or just signing up. That link I listed will get you a box delivered to your home with the activation code to renew your account.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

Apple is not removing the bookmark syncing service. You cannot sync your bookmark using .MAC after June 30th. When MM goes online during the following weeks, any bookmark changes will automatically be pushed to all of your machines. At least that is my understanding.

His point was that he does not have any other machines, but accesses his bookmarks from office PCs, friends PCs and others that obviously won't be synced.

I too used this service when over a buddies place as i don't have a notebook, nor a computer of my own just sitting at his house, or the office.

Emails stored on .Mac, as well as files on a .Mac iDisk and Backups to a .Mac iDisk will all be accessible from MobileMe and continue to function as they do today. Some other features, however, will be discontinued such as iCards, .Mac slides, and support for Mac OS X 10.3 Panther sync.

Apple will also discontinue Web access to bookmarks on June 30, 2008, after which users will no longer be able to access or update their bookmarks at .Mac. To avoid losing any existing .Mac Bookmarks, Apple recommends that .Mac users sync them with Safari on a Mac before June 30.

I will be a new subscriber to MobileMe. I'm going to try to get my iPhone 3G on launch day, but I'll have to go to an AT&T store due to account complications.

Should I pre-order from the Apple Store, given that there are only a few days now until launch?

Or, will I be able to walk into the Apple store and buy a MobileMe box?

You can buy it at the Apple Store and they can help set it up for you if you wish, but you can save $20-30 off the Apple Store price if you buy from Amazon or Royal Discount.

Speculation: They may also be pushing it and I wonder if they will offer the same discount for $69 for MobileMe with the iPhone as they do with Mac purchases as it evolves the ecosystem and helps push the user toward a Mac.

PS: SInce Apple is marketing Mobile Me alongside the 3G iPhone I wonder if AT&T stores will also be selling MobileMe. Chances are slim, IMO.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"